


The Indiscernibility of Identicals

by wesleyfanfiction_archivist



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-11-04
Updated: 2003-11-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 08:51:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7095103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesleyfanfiction_archivist/pseuds/wesleyfanfiction_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If b is the same as c, then whatever is true of b is also true of c.  Angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Indiscernibility of Identicals

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [WesleyFanfiction.net](http://fanlore.org/wiki/WesleyFanFiction.Net). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [WesleyFanfiction.net collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wesleyfanfiction/profile).

Notes: This story was written for violetsmiles, for the Wesley Ficathon.

***

Wesley is starved for touch. 

When Wesley was a child, his nurse was constantly fluttering over him, giving him hugs and kisses. His mother, though distant, would let him scramble up into her lap in the evenings sometimes. Even his father touched him, a too-heavy slap on the back when he’d been good or smacks on his bottom because he’d been caught at something. Once he was off at school, it was wrestling in the grass and tackling in the hallways, and later, fumbling kisses in the dark dormitories. But he was always touched. 

Grown up now, Wesley rarely touches, rarely is touched. When he is, it’s because it’s necessary -- he’s sparring with Gunn to keep his hand-to-hand combat sharp, or there’s been an injury, or he reaches down to get a fallen pencil at the same time as Fred. He misses being touched for no reason but the joy of touching, but he’ll never admit it, even to himself.

Wesley has struggled at playing the straight man. When he graduated from university, Wesley told himself it was time to give up boys. It was something everyone experimented with as a young man, but now he was an adult, and ready to put away childish things. In any case, it was a sacrifice he would have to make if he wanted to join the Watcher’s Council. He hasn’t been altogether unhappy with his decision either. Cordelia was a disaster, obviously, but he had genuinely liked Virginia, and been sorry to see her go. If there wasn’t that spark of something special between them, it wasn’t his fault; it was just that some people don’t happen to click. It certainly wasn’t for lack of trying.

Still, it has been years since he was properly touched. Lately, he’s been having embarrassing dreams that increasingly seem to revolve around Angel. It’s made Wesley hyper-aware when he’s around the vampire, and he catches himself reaching toward him with his hand sometimes, or fixing his eyes on some part of him: his left arm, perhaps, or his earlobe. He has to force himself to stop.

Every time Angel touches him, even if it’s accidentally, it’s carefully catalogued in Wesley’s mind for future reference. Last night, for example, a Grot’th demon’s talon caught Wes high in the leg, sending him sprawling all over the pavement. After Gunn and Angel managed to bring the demon down, Angel was over him, pressing against the bleeding flesh and asking Wesley if he was okay. 

Now, Wesley’s thinking about it as he pulls on his cock in the shower this morning. He’s not remembering the razor sharp pain of claw slicing through skin, or the slow ache of seeping blood afterward; instead, it’s the pressure of Angel’s palms against his thigh, the way his fingers curled around Wesley’s leg. The way one hand, still covered in blood, came up to push Wes’s hair out of his eyes, and smeared a red line across his forehead, proof that Angel had been there, that his touch was real.

Wesley comes with a little shout, and then stands there watching as the evidence is washed down the drain. He knows it isn’t right, knows he shouldn’t be feeling these things about Angel, who is his friend, and a vampire, and most importantly, a man. But it’s easier to deal with it this way than to walk around with a hard on all the time. It’s more efficient.

When Wes gets into the office, Angel wants to see the wound. Last night after he went home, Fred found a footnote in one of the books that said there was a possibility of mild poisoning from the Grot’th claw, and she and Angel cooked up an antidote. Wesley is flustered and protests that he can do it himself, but pretty soon he has his pants pushed down around his knees and Angel is carefully pouring a stinging liquid onto the torn skin. 

Wesley tries not to arch up into the touch as Angel carefully reapplies the bandage and holds down the edges of the tape for a few seconds to make sure it sticks, but he’s not entirely successful, and he’s pretty sure that Angel can probably smell his arousal anyway. Angel looks up at him and their eyes connect, and Wesley realizes that he wants him, that he needs to be touched, that he needs to be touched by this man. All the bullshit about putting away childish things was just that -- bullshit. 

Wesley gently reaches down and palms Angel’s cheek, and slides down off the chair so he’s sitting on the floor by Angel. He leans forward, and he’s going to kiss him, his lips are about to touch Angel’s, _finally_ , when he feels Angel’s hand on his shoulder, pushing him away.

Wesley opens his eyes and looks at Angel, a little confused. “I’m sorry, Wes,” Angel is saying. “I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression.”

“Wha--What?” Wesley asks, confused. 

Angel’s eyes look very sad, and very old. “You know I love you, Wes. You’re my best friend. My right hand man. But not--even if I were _in love_ with you, I couldn’t do this. You know that.” Even if. 

Wesley’s face falls, and he turns away, struggling up from his awkward position on the floor and pulling up his pants too quickly so that the tape on the bandage pulls away from his skin a little and stings. “I know, I’m sorry,” he manages.

Angel stands up too, and puts a hand on Wesley’s shoulder, turning him around. “I’m sorry, Wes,” he says, and Wesley can tell that he is. Angel kisses him on the forehead and then releases him, and somehow, it’s enough.

Wesley is the same man he’s always been. He knows that, now. No magic transformation took place when he ended his studies and left school. He’s still the boy who craved touch, however he could come by it. And he’s also still the teenager who fell in love with his best friend when he was fifteen, who asked him to meet in the courtyard at midnight, who brought him roses in some misguided notion of romance, who kissed him, who got punched in the face and kneed in the balls, who got rejected. Who moved on.


End file.
